Page 162 of Sinful Lies

My laugh was low, and laced with frustration.

I wanted to rip her apart for even asking, to remind her that she already fucking knew the answer.

For six years, she had been my shadow, my weapon, my solace.

She knew every dark corner of me, every fractured piece of the man I was.

“With my life.”

She stepped back and unzipped her dress. It slid down her body in a whisper, pooling at her feet.

My stomach twisted, a raw ache clawing at my chest as I stared.

No fucking bra.

Nothing but a scrap of black velvet between her thighs and those sharp-as-sin heels.

She moved around me like a predator, her finger trailing along my chest, shoulder, neck. Then it was gone, and the sound that followed made my gut clench.

A click.

Handcuffs.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

She was tying me to the chair.

Just like he fucking did.

Her voice cut through the haze of my spiraling mind. “Let it go, Angelo. That night, that pain—it doesn’t own you anymore. I’m here. Let me give you something else to hold on to.”

Her hands were on my wrists, the cold bite of steel snapping against my skin as she secured one, then the other.

“I want you to feel something else tonight. I want to replace that darkness withme.”

A crack ripped through my chest.

The memories came flooding in like a tsunami.

Blood on the floor. Knives glinting under dim light. The rancid taste of bile. The muffled screams in my own throat.The fucking sound of their footsteps on those stairs—heavy, unstoppable.

I thrashed against the cuffs, the chair groaning under the force.

My vision blurred with fury and disgust, the haunting weight of my past pressing down like a goddamn vice.

“Jade,” I snarled, my voice breaking, raw. “Take these off.Now.”

Her hands settled on my thighs, grounding me, and when I finally looked at her, her eyes burned with something I couldn’t name.

Something that cracked me wide open.

“You don’t trust me?” she murmured, her lips brushing against my jaw, her nails sinking into my skin.

“I trust you,” I choked out. “That’s not the fucking point?—”

She crushed her mouth to mine, swallowing every curse and protest before I could spit them out.

Climbing onto my lap, she pressed herself against me, her bare tits warm against my chest, her nails scraping my skin.

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